After completing the remodeling
of our family room, I had discovered that there was a space between the
side of the French doors and the corner of the room that just needed something
to make this space "look right". I found a plan for a wall hung mirror
that had a lower shelf and two small drawers that appeared in the March
2010 issue of Wood Magazine,
Number 196. I thought this would be a perfect piece for that space
and would provide us with a convenient place to put our keys when we came
through the entry door into the house. At any rate, here is the finished
product and the complete build process that follows.

Although the plan in the magazine
called for using cherry, I decided to use red oak to make the case because
the trim that we used throughout the room was made from red oak and I wanted
the mirror to match that particular wood.

I
started out by ripping the rails and stiles as well as the two corner blocks
at the top of the frame to 2 1/4" widths as called for in the plan. I then took the stiles and
rails to the router table and cut 1/2" wide by 1/2" deep rabbets in them
to accommodate the eventual mirror that would be placed in the completed
frame. You can see a picture of that process being done in the photo
here on the right.When the rabbets were finished
on all four of the pieces, I needed to cut rabbets on both ends of each
of the rails. They were cut to match the width and depth of the rabbets
on the stiles. You can see the setup of them being cut on my router
table in the left photo.

After all the rabbets were
cut and the pieces were final sanded, I laid the rails and stiles face
down on the flat surface of my table saw side table and glued them in place
and clamped them to dry. You can see the clamped up frame in the left photo
below and the dried frame after unclamping it in the lower right photo.

The next step was to drill
a 1/2" diameter hole at the top (and on the back side) of the two stiles
to accommodate the eventual mounting of keyhole hangers that would be used
to mount the mirror on the wall. I didn't get a picture of this operation
though.....sorry about that!

I then moved on to cutting
the mirror top, cap and lower shelf to size. After completion of
this step, I mounted a 1/2" cove bit into my router at the router table
and used this setup to make coves under the front and ends of the mirror
top. Then I retrieved the corner blocks for the top of the frame
and used this same router table setup to make coves at the bottom of these
two blocks.

After the coves were made
on these pieces (and they were final sanded), I glued them up and clamped
them together in two different steps. The first step was to clamp
the top and cap together and to the frame top. That can be seen in
the left photo below. When this had dried and been unclamped, I glued
up the top blocks just below the top and cap and onto the stiles as shown
in the right photo below.

The final step in making
the frame consisted of the glueup of the bottom shelf to the bottom of
the frame. I used the same setup on the router table as was used
on the top cap to make a cove around the underside of the shelf.
After gluing the shelf to the bottom of the frame, I used four screws from
under the shelf and into the frame to reinforce the joint. The photo
on the right shows a view of the frame after this was completed.

The next step was to move
on to making the case for the lower drawers. After cutting the case
top, bottom and sides to size, I set up my router table with a straight
sided bit and routed a 1/4" deep rabbet at the same thickness as the top
and bottom pieces on the top & bottom of the side pieces.

After completion, I changed
the depth of the setting to the same thickness as the paneling I was going
to use for the back of this "box" and routed the back edges of all the
pieces. I made a box divider to be used in the final assembly, sanded
all the pieces to 220 grit and set them aside for later.

To support the final box,
I needed to make a couple of brackets to support the bottom of the box.
When this was completed, I used a countersinking pilot bit and mounted
the finished brackets to the bottom side of the box bottom using glue and
screws. You can see what this looked like after the clamping in the
photo here on the left.

I then assembled the remaining
pieces of the case, glued and clamped them to the supporting bracket assembly
as shown in the left photo below. In the right photo below, you can
see that I had previously routed a dado at the center for the drawer divider
and glued it in place.

When things had dried and
were unclamped, I set the completed drawer case assembly on my workbench.
I spread glue between the top of the lower drawer case top and the bottom
of the shelf on the upper frame assembly and clamped these two assemblies
together. The photo on the right shows what all that looked like
after the clamping was done.

The photo on the left is
how everything looked before the actual mirror was installed and the drawers
where made and installed. I ordered a beveled mirror (cut to size)
from a local glass supplier and then following the plans, made two drawers
to fit into the case.

All
there was left to do at this point was to stain everything and apply the
final finish. I used Varathane® Golden Oak gel stain and two
coats of Minwax® clear satin urethane finish, using #0000 steel wool
between the two coats. The photo here on the right shows the final
assembly and drawers after the staining was completed.

This was another fun project
for me and, as always, your comments are welcome.